


Careful What You Wish For

by NervousAliceCurious



Category: Escape the Night (Web Series)
Genre: Fire, Gen, The Untwist
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-27
Updated: 2020-09-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26678749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAliceCurious/pseuds/NervousAliceCurious
Summary: Upon losing Sierra, the remaining Guests are invited to the backwoods for what they think is another previous owner.It does not go as anyone planned.
Kudos: 7





	Careful What You Wish For

**Author's Note:**

> Cw: Death, suicidal ideation, burning. Loss, struggling with loss.

It’d started out innocently enough:

No sooner had they put the beads on the mantelpiece, then a box had opened up.

‘Because it’s always another box’, Tim thought tiredly.

After Matt had come back in, claiming that he’d killed Sierra everyone had turned on him.

Except himself.

If they didn’t outright say it, he saw it in their eyes-

‘Exhausting stuff, man. . .’

So he joked and played it off like he always did.

“What do we got?”

“Let me see:”

Joey stuck his hand in there.

“Ooh!!”

“Is that good or bad?”

Eva walked over, peering inside with him.

“Who cares”, Matt replied brokenly, “We’re all going to die anyway…”

“No, _you_ are”, Lele snapped impatiently, “What is it?”

“It’s so pretty~!”

Joey held the blue crystal up to the light almost reverentially.

“I love it-“

“Is that really it?”

Oli was incredulous.

“There’s a note!”

Eva waved it in the air.

“What’s it say?”

Their Hunter friend was sounding very, very tired.

-She unfolded it:

_I like playing with fire, don’t you?_

_Bring the offering out to the farthest stretch of woods._

_This is now the Age of Gods._

As if on cue, a sapphire-hued fire suddenly blazed in the grate-

Oh wait.

They didn’t have one!!

The whiteness of the lounge caught ablaze in a fingersnap.

“Run!!” Oli yelled-

“I am not turning into un malavisco!!” Lele shrieked.

-Tim pulled his friend up from where he’d melded with the couch cushions, and they all stampeded out the door as one entity.

“OhmyGodohmyGodohmyGodoh-myGod-!!”

Joey had never run so far and so fast in his life.

Not even when the Carnival Guy with the horns had been speeding after them upon his Front Lawn-

‘There goes my exercising for the next year-!’

“Did we lose it?”

Tim was peeking sporadically over his shoulder as he hot-footed it.

“Did we?”

Matt was flat.

“I don’t know-!!”

Poor Oli was puffing and beet-red in those furs.

“-Wait, stop-!!”

They all followed Eva’s order a bit too late, and Joey accidentally head-butt her into the altar.

“Ow-!!”

“Sorry!”

“Shame on you!” Lele scolded-

Eva righted herself.

“Ooookay-“

“That’s creepy”, Matt remarked.

It was black.

Black rock, with black iron extending into the night as stylized flames.

“Cool”, Tim said.

“Can I buy that on Etsy-“

Oli just stared at him in disbelief.

“Joey, do you still have that crystal?” Eva asked.

“Yup”.

It was currently metaphorically boring a hole into his side.

“Well, I think you should put it there”.

“But it’s so pretty. . .”

He grimaced internally.

“It’s _so_ pretty”.

He set it carefully upon the curved basin.

-It glowed.

“Party time?” Tim joked-

It erupted into bluish-gray smoke and violet-green heat.

“Lit”.

“Not _now,_ Tim”, Lele groaned-

Words.

Singing themselves into the ironwork, they saw:

_Who goes there?_

_State your name and role here._

Lele snorted.

“Full of themselves, aren’t they?”

“Sounds like you”, Matt grumbled,

-She kicked him in the shin with her high heel.

“OW-“

“-I’m Eva, and I’m a Journalist”.

“I’m Joey, the Savant. . .”

“Hi, I’m Tim, I’m the Mobster-“

A circle of blue flame flared and widened under his feet.

“-What’s that?”

. . . . . .When no answer was forthcoming, they continued with the introductions.

“I’m Lele Pons, the Hustler-“

Another blue circle.

Her Nemesis grinned.

“Not _one syllable-!!”_

“I’m Matt. . .I’m the Professor, I guess-“

“-How come _I_ get an ominous sign under my feet, and he doesn’t!?”

“Oli, the Big Game Hunter”, he gulped.

A blue circle under _his_ feet.

“Oh come on!!”

Eva swallowed.

“That’s all of us”.

-The circles winked out.

“We-we’re all just trying to live-“  
A giant deluge of flame.

She screamed, and stumbled back-!!

‘Am I on fire!? Am I on fire!!??’

She did a brief, panicked pat-down with her hands.

’Nope, nope, I am fire-free-‘

-What was she even thinking right now!??

“Holy Mother of-!!” she heard Lele exclaim-

The column had mostly subsided in intensity.

“He’s hot!”

“Could be non-binary though”, Tim added, “Or a girl…or agender-“

“Uhh, excuse me? Mx. Fiery?” Joey interrupted-

“Hi, can I please die?”

-And that’s when Matt Haag went up in a blast of aqua-colored ruin.

“What the h*!???”

Eva stumbled away from the sudden pile of ash.

Not even his bow tie was left—

“Dude!!” Tim shouted-

“He was my best friend!!!”

His voice broke.

-She may have hated his ever-loving daylights while he was still around and complaining, but now…

“Oh my God. . .”

Joey gawped, horrified.

“Why did you do that!??”

Lele just stared in shock.

Speechless.

. . .

“He wanted it”.

-Eva was **struck.**

“So you-!?”

‘You thought it was okay to-‘

This is now the Age of Gods

Her heart thumped.

The wildness of the earlier storm had cooled (un-ironically), in intensity to reveal a person with streaked hair in various shades of blue, turquoise, purple, and green.

She couldn’t make out their face-

The remnants of blitzing death crackling around them obscured it.

Any expression they might have made, any closure they might have gotten for such a horrible, horrible act…

“Yes”.

_Beat._

“And you’re the first one to call me a man on sight”.

Their voice was even, despite all the fire motifs they’d seen thus far-

“Pronouns?” Joey squawked-

“He/him”.

There was a faint thread of confusion, but she couldn’t have been sure enough for the world.

“Bring Matt back!!”

‘Why did I say that?’

-Even stranger, Lele didn’t protest.

“Yeah…please?”

Tim’s eyes were wet.

....

“I don’t have that power”.

-That **hurt.**

More than she expected it to.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding-‘

“What were the circles for!?” Oli questioned hysterically, “Are Lele and I going to die next-“

“No”.

The man swallowed.

“. . .Good”.

‘Probably a vote in the pile then’, she thought, but she didn’t dare say aloud.

Like it would disturb the significance of Matt’s…if she said that……

“Do you. . .have something that will help us leave the house? A seal or…”

She strained her memory, currently short-circuiting, that pile was still right there.

“Whatever”.

“. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .What seal?”

Eva. Went. **Off.**

“Excuse me, Sir, but you just murdered one of our friends!!

You should know **_something_ **about this whole mess or we never would have been directed over to your bleak Altar to begin with!!!

Are you stuck!?

Did you get trapped like the rest of us!??

_Or are you working with the Evil to keep us in the 1920’s **forever!???”**_

“…..?”

“ANSWER ME-“

Silence fell.

Her chest heaved with. . .with. . .grief, and, rage, and-

“I don’t know anything”.

‘Matt’s dead’.

Lele’s mind couldn’t accept it as real as they walked away.

‘He’s _really_ dead’.

No more sniping with him about how terrible of a job he was doing-

‘He’s never coming back’.

No more voting him into challenges because why not.

-She didn't have any idea what to _do_ with herself.

He _was_ the traitor, right?

‘. . .Can we go home now?’

-Her fleeting hope disappeared.

On the table sat a white envelope-

Oli opened it.

_Did you enjoy your surprise?_

He swore a blue streak-

(Which was very unlike him),

And threw the offending piece of paper into the trash.

Their notebook _glowed._

“. . .Oh no…”

’Not _another_ hour…!!’

She could have **strangled** that monster.

“…Right, okay-“

Joey gulped.

“Let’s. . .let’s look at the next entry”.

...........Eva popped the latch without speaking.

Tim was wiping his eyes-

“Yeah, let’s go”.

Lele’s own eyes flashed angrily.

“Let’s send that mothertrucker straight to Hell”.

. . .Honestly, Oli was just done-

‘Of all the twisted, sick-!!’

 _-Mind_ games that could have been played…!!!

‘I won’t forgive them, whomever they are….’

“What happened?” Arthur said cluelessly.

“Has Matt gone?”

Oli had to restrain himself from making a smart comment.

“Yeah. . .”

Joey’s tone cracked.

“…I see”.

The butler awkwardly cleared his throat.

“Well, I am sorry for your loss-“

-That’s when Oli spotted the piece of paper in his pocket.

“Arthur, what’s that?”

“What’s what?”

. . .It slooowly dawned on him-

“Oh this?”

He withdrew the paper.

“It’s nothing”.

But Eva was _too fast._

*

After being drugged, locked-up, chased around and around and _around_ for what felt like **hours,** it was _extremely_ cathartic to see all three of them dead:

The Staff did it.

‘What a shock’, he thought sarcastically, remembering Eva’s accusations from the very beginning that Sarah had murdered Shane.

‘Maybe now we can all go home’.

They did the Correct Ritual, and then _got out._

Tim laughed in amazement and relief as their previous Party-Turned-Prison spontaneously burnt to dust.

Sky-blue flame tips licking the sky. . .

‘What a relief’.

(Of course, they had no clue that Joey had left with the House’s Deed on him or anything-)

But that didn’t matter.

(Until 2018).

They were alive. . .they were together.

Barely-

And they were finally able to greet the light of the Sun.

**Author's Note:**

> This literally spawned from 'What if Matt had gotten his wish?'-


End file.
